A study on stress among government city bus drivers in Hubli

Bus drivers always need to show concern for passengers in spite of the fact that they must be concentrating on bus driving. This is because this  job  is  part of public service industry. 2 The physical and psychological health of the bus driver is a critical factor in the driving performance. Any impairment could lead to undesirable consequences for the passengers. Hence, study was taken to know the stress among the bus drivers. Objectives:1) To evaluate stress among bus drivers. 2) To verify relation between job stressors and stress reaction  3) To verify relation between job stressors and bus accidents. Materials and methodology:  A cross sectional study was conducted among government bus drivers in Hubli .Frequency of bus passenger accident by each bus drivers, concern for driving, confirming safe conditions for drive observed by the drivers during their work were asked. Then depression among bus drivers was assessed by self rating depression  scale 4 Results: More than 80 per cent of the bus drivers were under varying amount of stress.  There was significant positive correlation between job stressors and stress reactions. There was significant positive correlation between performing a safe driving job and stress reaction.   There was significant positive correlation between job stressors and bus passengers’ accidents. Key words: stress ,    job stressors,   stress reaction.


Results
It is observed that 47% of the drivers were in the age group of 24-34 years followed by 29% in the age group of 35-44 years. About 97% bus drivers were married indicating that there are people dependent on them.. 36% of bus drivers are educated till matriculation followed by post matriculation (34%). 78% of bus drivers had more than 4 years of experience. This shows that the NWKRTC prefers those who have more experience. Most of the drivers77% had working hours between 9-12 hours. Majority (51%) of bus drivers work more than 25 days in a month. 33% of the bus drivers had tobacco chewing habits, 13 % had the habit of consuming alcohol These habits may affect the driving skills. Most of the drivers (60%) sleep 6-8 hrs. per day, followed by 33 % who sleep less than 6 hours.61 % of the drivers had medium number frequencies of bus passengers' accidents followed by 23 % of drivers who had low frequency of bus passengers' accident.83% of the bus drivers had medium concern about the conditions of the bus before and during the drive..56% of the bus drivers are mildly depressed followed by 19 % who are moderately depressed due to their occupation. Melancholy showed negative correlations with recognition from boss, co-workers. Irritation showed negative correlations with family. .05, **= significant at p<0.01 Melancholy showed a positive correlation with declining aptitude toward their job, and passengers complaining against them. Fatigue showed positive correlations with declining aptitude, bad environment in bus, difficulty in getting holidays and getting paid less. Irritation showed a positive correlation with declining aptitude, bad environment in bus and getting paid less. Trouble with sleep showed a positive correlation with getting paid less and passengers complaining against them. Correlation analysis was carried out between safe driving and stress reaction in order to clarify the psychological conditions that could disturb a safe driving job. Significant positive correlation was confirmed between Irritation and concern for driving. -0.273 ** 0.223 * * = significant at p< 0.05 ** = significant at < 0.01 Analysis was carried out in order to verify how much a safe driving job was related to other process variables directly. Incident showed significant positive correlation with irritation, bad environment among colleagues. Incident showed significant negative correlation with recognition from family and recognition from passenger's accidents showed significant positive correlations with recognition from passengers.

Discussion
Fundamentally the results of this study support another study Bus drivers' mental conditions and their relation to bus passengers' accident with the focus on psychological stress concept Yamada et al 2 .
IJBR (2014) 05 (02) www.ssjournals.com The results of the study showed that majority of the bus drivers don't spend sufficient time with their family due to their hectic job schedule which affects their psycho-social behaviour and may contribute largely to the stress they experience. It was seen that major amount of drivers had bad habits like consumption of alcohol and tobacco which may hamper their sense during driving hours and may contribute to the causing of bus passengers' accident. It was seen that significant amount of drivers didn't get enough sleep on average per day which directly contributes to the amount of stress they suffer. In this study it was found that there was significant negative correlation between melancholy and recognition from boss, co-workers, and family these findings were similar to Yamada et al 2 , study which showed significant negative correlation between melancholy and recognition from the boss.
The study established a positive correlation between melancholy and declining aptitude towards their job, and passengers complaining against them. These findings were similar to Yamada et al 2 , study .there was significant relationship between fatigue, irritation and declining aptitude towards their job and bad environment in bus, difficulty in getting holiday, paid less for their job, which were not similar to the study Yamada et al, these findings were not similar to the study of Yamada et al, which showed significant positive correlation between irritation and complains from passengers. The results did confirm the positive relation between job stressors and bus passenger's accident. Some findings were similar to the study, Yamada et al, which showed significant correlation between stress reactions and bus passenger's accident.

Conclusion
More than 80 per cent of the bus drivers were under varying amount of stress. There was significant positive correlation between job stressors and stress reactions. There was significant positive correlation between performing a safe driving job and stress reaction. There was significant negative correlation between recognition from others and stress reaction. There was significant relation between stress reaction and bus passengers' accidents. There was significant positive correlation between job stressors and bus passenger's accidents. There was significant negative correlation between recognition from others and bus passenger' accidents.